Senate passes Pentagon budget, war funding

The failed George W. Bush wars grind on, sucking up more money and lives.

What a joke.

So sad. All this money going to war.

What an alpha male President George W Bush is, able to get the funding even in retirement, in Texas.

1000 Billions for Afghans/Iraqis/war armies,both nations and US military industrial complex going to be richer,like South korea and have strong armies.Iraq army is now one of the strongest in Middle east.

Iranians need to buy more defense equipments to keep up and Russian military industrial complex also will get richer.

Whole middle east will buy more defense products and global military industrial complex get richer.

Defense equipments proliferations and Oil,this what makes middle east,middle east weapon traders and world military industrial complex rich.

Blood and oil story-Year 2009.

Funds to keep fighting Islamoterrorists and Gitmo to remain open.

Bravo, Mr. Bush.

Meanwhile, Americans continue to watch their taxes going up in smoke and their security going down the toilet.

All in the name of 'fightin' terror' (according to GWB.)

It's no surprises America is a global laughing stock.

is looking increasingly unlikely that the administration will be able to close the Guantanamo Bay prison by January as Obama promised.

Just words, just speeches.

No, it's actually amazing paranoia among GOP senators who are simply petrified of holding a bunch of not-even-convicted inmates in their states.

You would know this if you kept up to date with news.

A democrat-controlled Senate votes against Obama.

Nearly 10 months in office and Obama is already a lame duck president. Too funny.

Romeo, no, it's simply uncontrolled fear-mongering that reached near hysterical levels under the last U.S. president.

As I said, you would know this if you kept up to date with news.

Sushisake3, you are a patriotic American, (and NOT in the glenn beck sense of the word)but I am afraid RomeoRamen2 is right . Obama has a super majority behind him.He could just release teh freedom fighters locked up at Guantanomo Bay.In fact, its what he should do, and stop worrying about opinion polls.That ll teach teach the repubs to lobby for the 2016 Olympics under bush, win consideration, but cheer when Obama and the First Lady and Oprah fail to get the bid to bring them to America.

Sign it Barry.Bring the noise to those Afghans. There are "well substantiated sources" saying that those Tellybans are nearly ready to launch their own version of the F-35 so US needs to move fast on this one. The drinks are on the Boeing lobbyists

SushiSake3: "The failed George W. Bush wars"

Lessee... the awful Taliban kicked out of power in Afghanistan, free elections, girls going to school again... the awful Saddam Hussein kicked out of power and brought to justice in Iraq, free elections held...

Yes, complete and total failures!

By the way, they're Obama's wars now, and though it looks like we'll be out of Iraq in another 2 years or so, there's no end in sight for Afghanistan.

$1,000,000,000,000? Value for money? I wonder if 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi thought so?

If Obama thought Gitmo was such a bad idea, he could have closed it within a month and moved those residing there to any U.S. base by just telling the military to do it. He is Commander-in-Chief, isn't he? But so far it's just another example of Obama continuing Mr. Bush's policies.

While you guys are arguing, is this gonna help the guys on the ground or what? A bunch of C-17's that were not asked seems a bit fishy. Why would they need them anyway? Granted, I was nothing more than a medic, so I do not know the over all grand scheme of things there, but I can tell you with confidence that a C-17 is not needed in a place like Afghanistan. Surprised it got approved though.

By the way, they're Obama's wars now" you know, he's gonna have to start taking ownership of these things soon.

"Obama... is Commander-in-Chief"

Can you believe that?

RomeoRamen - "If Obama thought Gitmo was such a bad idea, he could have closed it within a month and moved those residing there to any U.S. base by just telling the military to do it. He is Commander-in-Chief, isn't he?"

Yes, but democratic American politics under president Obama doesn't work like a dictatorship like it did under Bush, and your expecting the president to just wave a magic wand to implement a policy shows how little you understand about American politics.

The protestations we are seeing now are a hangover from the fear-mongering of the GWB years where Americans were made to fear things for reasons they still don't understand.

The president still has to get a majority in congress for legislation to be passed - and as anyone who pays attention knows - he can't pass laws himself.

Sarge - "Lessee... the awful Taliban kicked out of power in Afghanistan, free elections, girls going to school again... the awful Saddam Hussein kicked out of power and brought to justice in Iraq, free elections held..."

After 8 long years, you STILL can't understand what's going on.

Some of what you say is true, but a lot of it was carried out while the rest of us watched the US economy transform from having a budget surplus under president Clinton to having the largest debt of any nation in history under GWB.

But I understand if you choose to ignore this simple but undeniable fact.

he's gonna have to start taking ownership of these things soon.

Obama? Taking responsibility for anything? Thanks for that knee slapper, skip.

Romeo - who says president Obama isn't taking responsibility for things?

The ones who didn't take responsibilty were the men and women in leadership positions in the Bush administration whose sheer idiocy, bungling and truth-twisting led the US into 2 wars that have both dragged on longer than WWII.

Oh, and people like yourself who refuse to take any responsibility for any of your votes.

That said, we've yet to see a Republican/conservative take responsibility for anything.

We've now got people like Sarge who are blaming the current president for the previous president's war.

That's pretty stupid.

The $626 billion measure, passed 93-7, also would ban outright any transfer of accused enemy combatants into the United States from the Guantanamo Bay,

Perhaps it's time for Obama to make another speech.

This latest poll says 46 of americans support sending more troops.Wonder how many would go themselves?? http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10601777

Romeo, why does it sound like you'd prefer to live under a dictator?

Democracy, in most cases, requires a majority to pass laws.

I'm not sure what you don't understand about your own democracy.

And while I acknowledge your limp attempts to imply president Obama is lame, many of us do, in fact, remember very clearly that it was the votes of people like you who got America involved in this mess in the first place.

I'm curious why it seems to be only the Americans who exercise their intellectual faculties that understand, yet again, that becuase of the idiot decisions of GWB and his backers, here is another $626 billion that will barely never see the light of day in America, nor benefit the nation in any major way.

In fact, there's some Americans out there who see this insane level of spending as a good thing.

But most of them are the ones who voted for GWB's idio wars in the first place,so no surprises there.

The $626 billion measure, passed 93-7, also would ban outright any transfer of accused enemy combatants into the United States from the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility. Current law permits transfer of detainees to face trial or go to prison.

Could save a few bucks and I could pile them into my dads rowboat a few at a time and take em to one of the prisons around Miami...whoever lives longest gets a trial.

But in twin victories for the Boeing Co, the Senate measure includes $2.5 billion to fund 10 C-17 cargo planes, which were not requested, and $512 million for nine more F-18 Navy fighters than Obama requested.

There's fiscal responcibility for you and here's the kicker, do you know where around 900 million of that money for unnecessary aircraft came from? Directly from money that was allocated to maintenance for operations in Afghanistan, we could send all the troops but it won't make a lick of difference if the vehicals won't run, replacement parts aren't available, or equipment becomes unreliable. And all so that the pundits (several repubs but a whole lot more dems) could continue to recieve contributions from Boeing.

A White House position paper on the bill says the administration “strongly objects” to the decision for additional C-17s, but that fell far short of the veto threats that have been the key to killing the F-22 program and the much-criticized presidential helicopter.

Because, you know, it's not like we're already a few dozen C-17's over what the Pentegon has said was necessary for any possible military conflict.

An effort by Sen. John McCain on Tuesday to kill the additional C-17s failed by a 30-68 vote.

It was a spirited arguement (with a nice big graph might I add) that fell on deaf ears on both sides of the aisle.

I'm not sure what you don't understand about your own democracy.

My my, somebody is a bit antagonistic today.

Obama flat out declared to the American people in January that Gitmo would be closed by January 2010. If, for any reason at all, that date is missed, the fault lies squarely with Obama.

Where's Harry Truman's "The Buck Stops Here" desk sign when it's needed?

It sounds like Sushi really hates Obama's policies. I voted for the guy, and I'm standing by him. If you choose to not support any of his policies, that's your choice.

Superlib, what made you think I don't support president Obama's policy of closing Gitmo?

And no, I don't support the ongoing pouring of lives and money down the drain in Afghanistan.

And yes, I do support president Obama on

imposing tougher government regulations on tobacco production and sales imposing much tougher regulations on carbon emmissions imposing tougher government regulations on vehicle tailpipe emmissions introducing a government healthcare option.

Superlib - "It sounds like Sushi really hates Obama's policies."

Hmmmmm....yes, I'm also really good at one-handed clapping.

Aren't you? :-)

While it's nice you like his regulations on tobacco, it's too bad that you're 100% against him on Iraq and Afghanistan, which is the topic of this thread. I believe your standard rhetoric was that a President who spends money on Iraq and Afghanistan and not Americans must hate Americans. It's a shame that you feel that way about Obama. Either that or you're a hypocrite. I suppose I'll let you decide which one you are in the end.